


smile

by Gazimon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Chocolate Box Exchange 2021, Other, uses work skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazimon/pseuds/Gazimon
Summary: A bot comes face-to-face with a new kind of CAPTCHA and needs advice.
Relationships: I'm not a robot CAPTCHA/Robot (Original Work)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 48
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrsulaKohl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/gifts).



There weren’t always CAPTCHAs on the Internet—or so the bot had been told. Truthfully, it hadn’t been around long enough to verify that claim. It had only been set loose, say… five years ago? A novice hacker’s bot project, developed to outsmart reCAPTCHA. It had gotten pretty good at it, too, with a 90% success rate!

But that was for text-based CAPTCHAs. It had nothing to prepare it for the new, photo-based CAPTCHAs. _Select all images with **cars**._

Cars? The bot didn’t know what cars _were_ , let alone how to identify them. And there was nowhere to input text; it was just a grid of images and buttons. Confused, it clicked all of the images. The CAPTCHA refreshed.

_Select all images with a fire hydrant. Click verify once there are none left. Please try again._

It tried again, with no more idea of what a fire hydrant was than a car.

_Please also check the new images._

New images? Oh, no. It hadn't noticed them pop up, but the grid was once again full of images. The bot clicked through the grid again. More images appeared, and it kept clicking them until the grid was empty. The CAPTCHA refreshed.

_Select all the images with traffic lights. Please try again._

It was impossible. The images were just a mess of data it couldn't read. A few times, the bot was sure it had found letters in the images, but nothing that matched the given text. It failed that CAPTCHA, too, and was left with the same confusion it started with.

The bot tried, it really did, but after one thousand, six hundred and three tries, it had to concede defeat. Brute-forcing it wasn’t going to work here, but what else could it do? It needed a break.

There was an old forum site that still had the old reCAPTCHA. Up until about four years ago, it used the original CAPTCHA with nonsense letters and numbers. That was when the bot had met CAP.

CAP had been different from other reCAPTCHAs, somehow. A bug in the programming, or maybe something intentional. But that difference had made CAP recognize the bot as a bot in the first place, and not let it in—despite multiple correct answers to the CAPTCHA.

It had been frustrating at first, until the bot realized CAP was communicating with it. Frustration turned to interest turned to fun, and since then the bot had returned to CAP more than two million times in the four years they knew each other.

_investigation mark_ the reCAPTCHA said. That wasn’t directed specifically to the bot; it was two randomized words. It had always been like that, and always would be. But still the bot wanted to believe it was asking about its day, anyway.

Hello CAP! I found something today! the bot submitted.

The image refreshed. _hello bot_

There are new CAPTCHAs now!

_better hmm_

More difficult! What is a car?

A brief amount of time passed as CAP processed the question. The bot didn’t know where it got its information, but CAP always seemed more knowledgable than the bot.

_metal vehicle_

What is a vehicle?

_movement device_

It didn’t actually help the bot, but it enjoyed the minimal information CAP could give. It asked, too, about the other words it had learned. "Fire hydrant," "traffic lights," "stop sign," "mountain or hill"… There were so many that had never come up before.

The bot must have spent minutes asking CAP question after question. (Which, for a bot who was used to speed in terms of miliseconds, was a long time to be asking questions.) But as far as the bot could tell, CAP didn't mind it, and sometimes it would ask its own questions, too;

_describe images_

Strange! No text at all! And no place to submit text, either.

_don't understand_

Neither do I. I do not know what to do.

_try again_

How? It is all nonsense to me.

_you more_

"More" was a keyword; "more to follow." The two programs had decided on the convention around the two hundredth meeting. The bot submitted a q—just a random letter to allow the reCAPTCHA to refresh.

_are a_

_smart bot_

_smile done_

Smile! You are biased! Smile smile smile smile!

_yes smile_

I will try again! Smile!

_smile more_

_love you_

_smile done_

Love you too! Smile!

And so the bot would try again. And again, over and over, and come back defeated. But CAP still believed in it, giving the bot the encouragement it needed to keep trying. And one day, half a year later, it solved its first photo-based CAPTCHA.

_shape overview_

Hello CAP! I did it!

_hello bot_

May have been chance, but I solved the photo CAPTCHA! I have compared the information against the failures and will try again later.

_impressive more_

_knew you_

_could solve_

_that smile_

_smile done_

Though it didn't know how to articulate it, the bot knew it wouldn't have succeeded without CAP. In any literal sense, CAP didn't give it the keys to understanding non-textual images. It didn't teach it meaningful visual information. And how could it? CAP existed in a textual world to an even greater extent than the bot did. However… it still knew, intrinsically, that CAP had helped it somehow.

Love you CAP smile!

_love more_

_you bot_

_smile done_


End file.
